Biblical Worldview, Diving and The Book of John

Wow! I cant believe we are already getting ready to head into week four. It seems like life and time have just flew by. These last two weeks have been absolutely amazing. Thought I would give you a little run down.....Tomorrow we leave to go to the Belmophan base (capital city) through Friday.

Week before last: the base director came and did our lectures as well as our first dive instructions. Side note: the program is run with a sailing and diving school simutaneously and last school they had some issues with customs so about 2 weeks shy of the end the boats had to leave the country and they are still in Hondurus waiting for all the customs stuff to get figured out so the sailers are currently in Hondurus. The Lynn and Chris are the directors of the base but Chris has been living in Hondurus with the boats while Lynn has been here on the base with us. He flew in for our first week of lectures though and taught on Biblical Worldview and World Religions. We spent the week expanding our understanding of why we think the way we do, very much like a psych class but one specifically designed for you. Was really cool to just sit and think about why we think the way we do and understand what we think we know and what we really know especially when it comes to Dad. There are a lot of things that we think we really know when in reality if we really think about it it is just things we think. We also talked quite a bit about other religions and how they were started and what people who are in the belief actually believe. In addition to all that, we did our first dive certificates. There were 3 of us going for our advanced and advanced open water (they go together) which included some book work but mostly just diving. We did 5 dives including a deep dive, a night dive, a fish id dive, a bouyancy dive and a navagation dive. The deep one and the fish id were probably my favorite one. On the deep one we did this math problem above water and then did another one when we were at depth to see how much the nitrogen at depth effected our brain. It was pretty cool to see the difference in speed when you are at depth. Needless to say it definately took longer to think of the answer under the water...hahaha. The fish id was also really cool because the 3 advancded divers basically got to swim around part of the reef ourselves to id the fish while the basic guys fisnished up one of their dives. There were so many fish it was really unbelievable. Weve seen a bunch of rays as well. I actually almost kneeled on one the other day (they like to hide under the sand). During the night dive we did this thing where we all turned off our lights and got in a circle and moved our hands around and saw all the phosporesence from the organisms in the water. Was kinda exciting to see something in person that I learned about in school. :)

last week: our speaker was Jon Peterson from the Seattle area. I have to say I know we have only had 2 speakers so far but they have both been really cool and totally down to earth not to mention totally excited about what we are doing. They want to get to know us each and talk with us about our lives and P for us. This past week we talked about Bible study focusing on the book of John. It was so cool he had us read the entire book each day in a different way. We read quickly forwards, backwards, outloud, examining it for the I am statements and what Jesus claims and now this weekend we are praying through it. Its amazing how each time something new sticks out even when you have seen it a dozen times and you can anticipate what it going to happen next you still find something new. We also memorized the important pillars in each chapter for the book, yes all 21. It was pretty amazing to see how the story of life flows through each book just like a novel would. So often we just focus on one verse or one chapter in a book instead of the whole thing and thus miss out on a huge portion of the story. What really stood out the most to me is this simple conversation between Peter and Jesus in Chapter 21. At first glance it seems so simple and totally not that big of a deal and yet when you look into the heart of it in the greek it is something so amazing. Here is Jesus talking to Peter after the denial and after he has rose again and 3 times we asks Peter if he loves him. Just as 3 times Peter denied Jesus before he went to the cross. Jesus cries Peter do you agape me and Peter responds yea I philleo you, again he asks Peter do you agape me and Peter says yea I philleo me, then he asks Peter do you even philleo me and finally he responds you know my heart and yet he still says I philleo you and Jesus ends with then feed my sheep. It is such an amazing picture of the love that Dad has for us and all we respond with is yea I love you like my brother. Yet, at the heart of it he dosent want our brotherly love he wants the love that would sacrifice everything we held dear willingly laying it down to run to him like the father runs to the prodigal son, not caring how stupid we look or how much people will respond only bothering to be concerned with the deep passionate love we cary for our savior. So I ask in response do you agape Jesus?

Meet the Team

Name: Hillary Klatt

Age: 18

Home: San Clemente, CA
Interesting thing: she loves musicals and has been in musical theatre her whole life

Name: Alyssa Swander

Age: 19

Home: Champlain, Minnesota

Intersting thing: has worked at a summer camp in the past and 

wants to work in camping ministry

Name: Peter (Pete) Zalivar

Age: 19

Home: San Pedro, Belize (city of the island we are on)

Interesting thing: can make intersting accents (ie Western, Bristish, Jamacian), his dad is also a local pastor

Name: Richie Tzib

Age: 17

Home: San Pedro, Belize

Intersting thing: makes odd/funny noises when laughing (ie Santa) and also a scary high pitched one that is totally crazy

Name: Marcella de Waard

Age: 21
Home: Hendrik Ido Ambacht, Holland
Interesting thing: like baking and animals, her and her husband owned two rabbits before they left -mr and mrs rabbit (totally cute they showed up some photos!), she also has a law degree

Name: Rene de Waard

Age: 24

Home: Hendrik Ido Ambacht, Holland

Interesting thing: he loves to dive and used to be a gardener for a living

Orientate

(photo from the plane flying into the island) That is truly the word of the week. I am currently sitting at the computer in the library on base while the wind howls behind me in the front of the property. We have spent the last couple days being orientated to the base, Belizian food and people and learning about the program in general. (fyi-the food is very common Caribbean style food with rice and beans of some sort during lunch most days) There is a woman Laura who is from near Corozal (in Belize) who cooks lunch and so that meal is typically very Belizian and verrryyyy yummy. We have 7 people on our DTS in total including a couple from Holland and two locals from Ambergris Caye (the island we are on) as well as two other girls from the states. A truly international team, which we are all very excited and encouraged about. Its been interesting already in seeing how we each interact together from our different languages, cultures and backgrounds. I will be introducing you to each of the people on my team in the coming months to give you all a better idea of what life looks like for me right now.

As well as doing orientation we have already started digging into our material for classes which include memorization and meditation passages weekly as well as a LOT of reading. This week we focused on the book of Haggai. I have to admit, although I have read it, I have never really studied it much less meditated on it. One of our team leaders Jeff challenged us to look at what this book meant to us in modern day, in light of looking at ourselves as the temple. As I thought and meditated on this I was completely struck by how much we as modern day followers often neglect the temple of our bodies like the Israelites did to the temple. Just as they physically neglected the temple instead choosing to focus on other aspects of their life we in turn tend to become complacent or lazy in our relationship with Dad effecting the spiritual part of the temple and sometimes even in maintaining our physical health effecting the physical aspect of the temple. It is so easy to become distracted by the things of the world, even the things that don't seem bad. Instead of keeping our singular focus on him our eyes begin to stray making even spending that daily time with Dad so difficult. We become consumed with sports, work, kids, or even ministry and allow those things to take root ahead of Dad. We choose comfort instead of becoming uncomfortable for God and choosing a life that is wholly surrendered and diligent in pursuing him. In the end our efforts are seen through the harvest. If we become and stay complacent then we will reap what we have sowed. Yet, if we acknowledge where we have failed and seek out his guidance we can reorientate ourselves back to him. I have been challenged as a result of truly examining what I am orientating myself with and to? Is it to the things of the world or to the things of God? Each of us has to ask ourselves that question and truly discern what the answer is in order to proceed forward in our walk. It is in the end, one of the only things that matters. If we aren't orientating ourselves to God then everything else will be effected and it will all fall to the wayside.